Metro to Lease Parking Spots to Nationals

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The Metro board agreed yesterday to lease the transit agency's bus garage and adjoining parking lot near the new baseball stadium to the Washington Nationals to provide 310 parking spaces for ticket holders and attendees at other stadium events. The garage and lot are a block from the stadium in an area under-served by parking.

The lease for the lot, on Van Street SE, which can accommodate 80 vehicles, begins Saturday, the day of the first exhibition game at the ballpark. It will continue on a month-to-month basis until March 28, 2009, or until Metro settles the sale of the bus garage and lot properties.

The bus garage lease will begin April 20, after Metro removes its buses and equipment. That lease will also continue month-to-month for a year or until the properties are sold.

Both properties are tied up in legal wrangling among Metro and two developers over who should develop them.

Greg McCarthy, a senior director for the Nationals, said the ballclub hopes to make the parking available as soon as possible. The garage, which can accommodate 230 vehicles, needs to be modified before it can be used, he said. He declined to say whether the new parking would be for season ticket holders. Club officials want to assess the parking situation after "a couple of home games," he said.

The revenue from the leases would go to Metro's capital budget. For the first 12 months, the team would pay Metro $9,500 a month for the Van Street lot and $27,370 a month for the bus garage. If the Nationals decide to lease the properties until 2010, the rates would be slightly higher.

A Swearing-In and Kudos for Police

Metro's new transit police chief, Michael Taborn, was sworn in yesterday. Taborn, 55, had been director of the Federal Transit Administration's transit safety and security office for about five years. Before joining the FTA, he worked for Metro Transit Police for 28 years, retiring as a captain in 2002.

Metro had been looking for a permanent chief since Polly Hanson retired last year and was promoted to assistant general manager for safety, security and emergency management.

Hanson is retiring from that post, effective today, after 27 years with Metro, including six as police chief. Catoe said he especially appreciated her candor. "Polly doesn't tell you what you want to hear," he said. "She will tell you what you need to hear."

Catoe and the board also recognized the "exceptional customer service" of three Transit Police officers who helped a rider who fell on ice at the Fort Totten station during the ice storm Feb. 12.

The woman broke her leg while trying to catch a bus. Sgt. Howard Holloway and Officers Ludwig Esquivel and Nopadon McKee fashioned a splint out of cardboard boxes and police tape and carried her to a bus shelter while they waited more than two hours for emergency crews to arrive.